Entries from July 29th, 2011

29.7.11

Since coming home from a wonderful week long vacation at the beach where we drooled over some of the most beautiful landscaped yards we’ve been hard at work with little odds and ends around the yard.

You know the kind of odds and ends that tend to get away from you when you have so many big projects going on that you don’t have time for any of the little ones and sooner or later the little list keep growing and growing until things get out of control (kind of like this sentence)… Yeah well that’s where we were headed. Right down a big old rabbit hole of too many projects going on at once.

The first order of business was to fix this giant patch of dead grass that used to be called sod that was originally supposed to fix a giant patch of dirt that had been created when we built the raised vegetable planters a while back.

This picture is blurry because I was too disgusted to take an actual picture of my dead sod situation and instead found this one I had taken on accident.

Here’s a tip I learned recently…

If you are ever in the market to buy sod DO NOT under any circumstances buy a piece of sod where before purchasing you question “how long has this palette of sod has been sitting in the parking lot of the local home improvement store”.

But then you buy it anyway because you think it’ll probably come back to life with some water and love.

It won’t and it’ll make the neighbors question the sanity of you and those that live in your household for continually watering a piece of obviously dead grass.

So after a few “are you sure you planted it green side up?” and funny looks I finally admitted that I may have been misguided when I purchased those particular pieces of said dead sod and planted grass seed this past weekend.

Here’s to hoping we’ll see green in 5 to 10 days and the neighbors will have restored faith in out sanity.

27.7.11

A few mornings ago I woke up to one of my favorite summer sites. The local campground brings their gaggle of summer children to kayak on the lake on many warm summer mornings. The brightly colored kayaks and giggling that most certainly follows always brightens my day.

26.7.11

It’s true I have turquoise mirror obsession and after the success of my last mirror makeover I wanted to more closely match this inspiration mirror I found (pictured below) while browsing pinterest a while back and have been obsessing about ever since. It was so easy I now have to stop myself from buying every mirror I see and spray painting it.

I began my search on eBay for Syroco style mirrors I settled on this mirror for it’s similar shape and details and I thought it would be a good makeover candidate as some of the gold finish was chipping.

I first removed the mirror and backing then primed the entire thing using an all purpose spray primer I had on hand. Once dry, the entire mirror received 2 coats of Valspar’s Exotic Sea Gloss and was set out to dry over night.

The next day I glazed the entire piece with Valspar’s Metal and Patina Glaze. I worked in smallish sections; glazing and wiping with paper towelsonly allowing the glaze a couple minutes to set.

And viola easy peasy lemon squeezy turquoise mirror makeover.

Psst: If you like this project stroll on over to our project gallery to see our other projects

25.7.11

Last week while vacationing at the beach we stopped by one of my favorite spots in this ocean side town. Situated along Ocean City, New Jersey’s 2.5 mile boardwalk located between 22nd and 19th streets lies the most beautiful stretch of landscaped homes, each one more stunning than the next. I could have stood and looked at these for hours if it hadn’t been already in the mid 90’s at 10:00 am.

It seems that every year we go there are more homes on this stretch of boardwalk with amazing ocean views and perfectly manicured yards straight out of a magazine. If you ever have the opportunity to find yourself here one summer day stop by and see for yourself these stunning oceanfront homes. I know I’ll be checking them out again next year.

21.7.11

This past week Bryan, Nikolas and I went on my family’s traditional beach vacation to Ocean City, New Jersey, along with my parents, 2 sisters and their husbands. It’s an annual trip that my parents have been enjoying since before we were born!

We are always quite busy doing nothing – between lots of time spent at the beach, visiting the boardwalk and playing board games (the game of choice this year was Clue). Every time we go I am reminded of all the wonderful childhood memories of days spent in Ocean City.

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